When inventing subject matter without the aid of reference images in drawing and painting, there are a few assumptions based on my observations of the real world that I find useful.
1) All light travels in a straight line until it reaches an object, at which point it is reflected, frequently in a radiating manner, the directions of the reflection being determined by the shape of the object.
2) Ambient light is that which comes from reflection. All objects within an environment reflect light, including the particles of gas within the negative space. These reflections bounce all over the place, further illuminating everything within an environment. The more the light bounces, however, the less powerful is its ability to illuminate as it becomes scattered and diffuse.
3) Direct light is that which is reflected off objects directly from a light source within an environment.
4) Shadows occur where light, both direct and ambient have a hard time reaching. Shadows vary in darkness, depending on how close they are to that which casts them. The darkest shadows occur where the influence of ambient light is diminished by how many times it must bounce to reach the area. The farther away shadows occur from the object which casts them, the subtler they are due to the influence of ambient light.
You know when you were a kid and were watching Terminator 2 and were like “Damn, what if that really happened?” and then you re-watched it when you were older and were like “wait a minute…” and then you watched The Matrix and shit really fucked with your head didn’t it?
Well Bizarros, the moment you’ve all been dreaming about is here! Robots are going to take over the world and destroy us all but the good thing is that at least the Robocalypse will look cool because robots are fucking awesome. At least they are much cleaner and efficient than zombies and they will clean our homes, fuck us, and serve us booze, before killing us all!
Wu Yulu, a Chinese farmer, from a small village, outside Beijing, has created a series of 47 robots, out of scrap metal. They can accomplish various functions, from drinking, to walking and even pulling a rickshaw.
…The strangest thing, about Wu Yulu, is he declared he loves his metal robots, more than he loves his own kids. He refers to his rickshaw robot as his 32nd son, and even programmed it to say “Wy Yulu is my dad, I take him out on the town.” How cool is that!
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More than 70 countries already use unmanned drones – aerial vehicles that are capable of gathering intelligence, or seeking and, if necessary, eliminating targets. At present, the latter decision is still made by human operators via remote control. Human decision-making, however, seems to be waning, while unmanned fighter robots act increasingly on their own. The pilotless aircraft can already be programmed to maneuver completely autonomously. The X-47B drone is still being tested, but once it is ready for action, the aircraft will be able to conduct missions largely autonomously and without human control.
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The wonderful people at DARPA just posted this cute robot:
Meet “Robbie the Robot” who is playing a game of what appears to be Simon all by himself which means he can become self-aware at any moment and destroy the planet.
Scientists have created a paper-thin flexible “skin” that can detect pressure that’s a few hundred times lighter than a gentle touch. This new material could eventually make its way into artificial or robotic limbs — but for now researchers have found that it is absolutely amazing at reading a pulse.
Scientists have successfully replicated the behaviour of a colony of ants on the move with the use of miniature robots, as reported in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. The researchers, based at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, USA) and at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition (Toulouse, France), aimed to discover how individual ants, when part of a moving colony, orient themselves in the labyrinthine pathways that stretch from their nest to various food sources.
It looks like a large drill, but this piece of equipment in South Canberra is no construction tool.
In years to come it may make your smartphone even smarter and help your car drive itself, with scientists believing basic global positioning technology can be accurate to the centimetre by the end of the decade.
The Pentagon has released a video of a robotic arm able to handle tools well enough to nearly complete a tire change.
And while the video is new, Gill Pratt, a project manager at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), told The New York Times it’s already outdated as the team has moved on to more dexterous hands capable of actually threading a bolt
According to its site, DARPA is the “principal agency within the Department of Defense for high-risk, high-payoff research, development and demonstration of new technologies and systems that serve the warfighter and the Nation’s defense.”
Inventions to have come out of their labs include stealth fighters, remote-controlled vehicles and GPS. Furthermore, the agency played a leading role in the development of the Internet.
Despite the obvious benefits of these innovations, however, many who see the video of the robotic arm unscrewing bolts from a tire are seeing much more than a leap forward in robotics – they are seeing a world of even fewer jobs for human hands.
And how can I make a Robocalypse post without some of the latest robot news from Japan?
Kenshiro is the next step for the researchers. Their previous effort resulted in a robot they called Kojiro – a robot that demonstrated the huge strides that have come in mimicking the human body, as well as the very long road yet to travel. In this new iteration, Kenshiro was preceded by a robot concept the team called Kenzoh. In that effort the team found that simply adding artificial muscle and bones generally tended to create weight problems. The upper body alone came to 45 kg. That caused the team to go back to the drawing board, this time with the idea of mimicking human bone and muscle at the individual body part level, i.e. a backbone, calf, or knee joint. Each part was custom designed to fall within the weight parameters of actual human limbs and other parts of the body.
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Don’t worry, it seems like we’re still a few years off from being robot slave bitches, but I’d keep a close eye on what DARPA are getting into if I were you…
Like ideas, scenes, characters and situations can come from a million places.
Here’s another idea:
Get fifteen slips of paper or notecards, something to write with, and a coin. (And a computer or a notebook to write with later.)
Write the names of five famous people on five of the pieces of paper or notecards. Put these names aside.
Write the names of five people you know, or have known in the past (who drive you absolutely bat-shit crazy), on five more.
Write the names of five places you remember the most viscerally on the remaining five pieces.
Turn all the pieces of paper over, keeping each set of five pieces of paper or notecards in their own piles. Shuffle each pile. Now, pick one card from each pile. Lay these cards out before you.
Turn the cards over and check out what you’ve got. Maybe you have William Shatner, your crazy nose-picking cousin Maise, and the cemetery you’d visit with your family every Memorial Day weekend as a child.
Think about William Shatner. What is he like? How does he talk? What are his ticks? If you’re not sure how the real William Shatner behaves, for example, grab one of his characters you know well. Captain Kirk would do, for instance. Write these qualities down on a piece of paper. One or two words for each behavior will do.
Think about Maise. What’s she like? How does she act? What are her affectations (other than sticking her finger up her nose)? Write down these qualities on a piece of paper, like you did for William Shatner, a.k.a. Captain Kirk.
Think about the cemetery. What did it look like? Smell like? Sound like? Feel like? How did it make you feel emotionally? How about physically? Take notes on these sensorial details.
Now, flip a coin. Heads? Your two characters love each other. Tails? They absolutely abhor one another.
Now, you’re going to write.
Write a five-hundred word scene where your two characters meet in your location. Write about how their behaviors plays off one another, making them in love or in hate as appropriate. Let them get physical in whatever way they’re going to.
Now, take your scene and make it bizarro if it’s not already. If you need to pick a brand of bizarro or bizarro elements, pull out five more pieces of paper or notecards, jot down some ideas, turn the cards over, shuffle them, and pick one.
And I’d dig it if you’d share below.
Or you could clean it up, develop your characters so they’re not just Kirk and Maise (change the names!), add some plot and submit it to Bizarro Central’s flash fiction editor, Kirsten Alene.
Until next week,
Spike
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Spike Marlowe has had a number of odd jobs, including working in a wild west show, as a detective, as a Bigfoot researcher, as a writer for an internet content farm and as a busker. Though sometimes she still busks or picks up the occasional odd job, these days she’s mostly a writer. Her first book, Placenta of Love, is now available at all the usual locations. You can find her online and on Twitter as @spikemarlowe.
In Leqing City, in China’s Zhejian Province, at around 6:00 a.m. on May 1, 2013, a woman was using a public restroom when the toilet literally exploded. The blast so was so powerful that it blew the exterior wall outward, injuring another woman who was walking by. Amazingly, the woman inside was completely unharmed, protected by the room’s internal brick walls.
A local citizen speculated that the incident may have been caused by faulty electrical wires that sparked and thus ignited the methane gas that had filled up the stopped-up toilet.
Fortunately, May Day was a national holiday in China, so there were not many people on the street. The restroom was located in an industrial area of the city, so had this incident happened on a regular working day, things could have gone a lot worse.
***With today’s post I’m experimenting with inserting a gallery instead of just inserting a bunch of pictures, so I’d love to get feedback in the comments below about which you prefer!
Dutch artist Daan Botlek creates some wonderfully odd street art and murals, but also does illustrations and commissions. You can see his work around the world – earlier this year he participated in the Bukruk Street Art Festival in Bangkok, Thailand!
by Constance Ann Fitzgerald
I love saying “Isabella Rossellini” out loud.
I love her name, I love her face, I loved her in Alias as an evil super spy, I loved her in Death Becomes Her, I loved her with glass legs filled with beer (!) in The Saddest Music in the World, and I love her voice. Even when she’s trying to justify eating her young.
I haven’t made a Bizarro Thailand post in awhile and there’s still a lot of Bizarro things here that you should know about.
During a road trip with some friends to Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand, we happened across a huge, sci-fi, space complex very reminiscent of Scientology but with a UFO Buddhist flavor:
As with any road trip in Thailand, you never know what you’re going to run into. I had no idea a Thai Buddhist space cult existed until I ran into it.
The place was empty when we visited but apparently tens of thousands of followers flood the 1,000 acre area during ceremonies and events and more buildings were being constructed to fit more people.
That youtube video does a great job of explaining what Dhammakāya is, especially from an outsider perspective. Here is more information cut & pasted from good ole’ wiki since I seriously have no clue what’s it’s about aside from the fact that their main building is a flying saucer and their symbol is a UFO:
The Dhammakāya Movement is a Buddhist movement founded in Thailand in the 1970s, with roots stretching back much earlier. It is said to be the fastest-growing Buddhist movement in present-day Thailand.[1] It teaches of the reality of a True Self (the Dhammakaya) in all beings, which it equates with Nirvana.
…The Dhammakāya Foundation was founded in 1916 in Thailand by Phramongkolthepmuni, the abbot of Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen. Following the death of Phra Monkolthepmuni, the Foundation’s work was continued by his disciple, Khun Yay Mahā Ratana Upāsikā Chandra Khonnokyoong, a Buddhist mae chi. In 1970, a temple, called Wat Phra Dhammakaya, was constructed as a home for the movement. Located in Khlong Luang, Pathum Thani Province, the temple was intended to become an international center for the study of meditation.
The Dhammakāya Foundation has been subject to its share of controversy. In 1999[10][11] and again in 2002,[12][13] leaders of the organization were accused of charges ranging from fraud and embezzlement to corruption. At that time social critic Sulak Sivaraksa criticized the Dhammakaya Movement for promoting greed by emphasizing donations to the temple as a way to make merit. Widespread negative media coverage a this time was symptomatic of the movement being made the scapegoat for commercial malpractice in the Thai Buddhist temple community[14][15] in the wake of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.[16][17]
…The movement has expanded branches to over eighteen countries worldwide and is promoted via a Buddhist satellite network or Dhamma Media Channel (DMC.TV) with a 24 hour-a-day Dharma and meditation teachings broadcast to the audience worldwide.
…Accusations that the Thai Government had financed activities at Wat Phra Dhammakaya were made in a letter by Sulak Sivalaksa on 10 May 2010[21] but the government issued a press release on 12 May to deny the accusations[22]
Seems like Dhammakāya is pretty much the core principles of Buddhism with white clothes, spaceships, and culty grandeur. Pretty cool.
I hope you all had a chance to think about your personal magic you find in making your art. If you didn’t get a chance, or if you’re wondering why in the nine hells Spike is talking to you about tea, allow me to point you to last Monday’s Tea House entry.
Now, let’s talk about this week.
If you’ve spent any time on Bizarro Central or within the bizarro community, you’re guaranteed to have run into Alan M. Clark. Alan is an amazing artist. Though he’s primarily known within the wider speculative fiction community as an incredible visual artist, he’s also a mighty fine writer. I highly encourage you to check out both his books, Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim and Parliament of Crows.
So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of what we’re going to chat about today: ideas.
Ideas for art come from everywhere, as you’re probably aware. But sometimes we feel a little stuck. Maybe we want to make some art, but we’re not sure what art we want to make right now, or perhaps we’ve got a brush or pen in our hand, and we have no clue what to do with it.
There’s probably an infinite number of ways to develop ideas, and today we’re going to dig into a super-easy place to find those ideas.
Other people’s art.
And this is where Alan M. Clark comes in.
Alan M. Clark has an amazing series on Bizarro Central, which he refers to as “Dilation Exercises.” You can find a link to the ENTIRE series right HERE.
For this week’s exercise, we’re going to focus on fiction writing, but if you’re a visual artist or a musician or a poet, or another kind of artist, hang tight. I have ideas for you, too.
Now, I encourage you to dig through Alan’s Dilation Exercises. Find one or two or three that speak to you. Set a timer for fifteen minutes and write about these pieces. What do they remind you of? What do they make you feel? What in the world do you think is going on in this piece? Don’t think — just write, for fifteen minutes.
When you’re done, reflect on what you wrote. Now, start again. Write for another fifteen minutes, synthesizing the pieces of art you picked and what you wrote for the first fifteen minutes. If you can’t come up with anything to begin with, write, “I’m stuck,” or “I don’t know,” or “Spike has a sexy mug of tea” until you get unstuck and the words start to come. And come they will. Don’t be hard on yourself — there’s no judgment here. Just play, and have fun. No one has to see this but you.
Now that you’ve got your words, what should you do? First, be excited that you rocked this exercise. Making good art is about practicing and practicing and practicing. You’ve just invested in improving your craft. You can choose to stick what you wrote in a drawer, or you can post it in the comments below (which would be AWESOME), or show your friends or writing group. Or you can further develop your exercise into a full story. The sky’s the limit — it’s your decision.
So, what do the poets and musicians and filmmakers and visual artists get out of this? I suggest doing something similar to what I suggested for the fiction writers. Check out one or two or three pieces of Alan’s art. Write or sketch or fiddle around on the piano, trying to capture the images, emotions, sounds, etc. that Alan’s art evokes in you. Play with this for fifteen minutes.
Now, take what you came up with in those fifteen minutes and synthesize it with Alan’s art. Pull out your oil pastels and make a composite piece that is both your work and Alan’s. Or spend half an hour working on a melody or chord progression that evokes the emotion Alan’s art and your reaction. Play with some lyrics, play with writing poetry. Write a monologue or some dialog or short scene that could appear on Adult Swim.
Today is Salvador Dalí’s 109th birthday. Believe it or not, he has never been a featured artist on Weekly Weird Art or Weird Art Month. Too obvious, maybe? Whatever the reason, he’s pretty pissed about it; I just got an irate phone call from him on my lobster phone:
Lobster Telephone, 1936
He said: “Buenos días, Andy! This is Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, and I am irate. I am also drugs.” I could hear his mustache fuming. “How dare Bizarro Central overlook me? Am I not the quintessential Weirdo Artist? Listen: I’m turning 109 this Saturday, and all I want for my birthday is to be the featured artist on Weekly Weird Art. That, and a flaming piano full of ants.” His mustache clapped its hands. “If you don’t grant my birthday wish, I will rise from the dead and slice up your eyeball.”
At that point, I slammed down the lobster phone. I was scared. I would do what he said.
May I present, this week’s artist: Salvador Dalí.
P.S. Melting clocks.
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Andrew Wayne Adams is the author of Janitor of Planet Anilingus, a bizarro novella available from Eraserhead Press. He was born and raised in rural Ohio. It was boring. The memory of it persists.
